Samsung is launching a very weird campaign in which it will turn off millions of televisions, showing just black screen for almost five seconds.
This weekend, Samsung is launching a #TVblackout campaign that can interrupt millions of users while they watch their favorite programs. The 20-second ad starts with a simulated static and interference and then the screen goes dark.
As CNET describes, initially, people might think of it as there is some issue with the TV, but then text scrolls on screen that reads, “This is your TV screen … most of the time; a void full of nothing.”
The campaign actually is about Samsung’s QLED TV technology and its Ambient Mode. The ad then promotes the technology that lets the TV to blend in with its surroundings or background when not in use, avoiding the sight of a black screen in the middle of the room.
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Samsung elaborated the approach stating, “Screens will buzz with static and interference before going blank and entirely silent, leaving viewers staring into the void – or searching for their remote controls – for five long seconds. The darkness ends with text emerging, which reads: ‘This is your TV screen ... most of the time; a void full of nothing.’ It then explains the virtues of Samsung QLED technology which has an ‘ambient’ mode meaning viewers need never see a blank screen again.”
Not only the TV screens, cinemas showing ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ and electronic billboards in London’s Piccadilly Circus will go through the same interference too. However, the campaign is for UK viewers and will initiate on Friday, May 25. The campaign will last for 10 days across 18 channels. Samsung also estimates that the ad will freak out 49 million viewers.
Moreover, with time, the five-second screen shutdowns will move on to being eight-second blackout as a part of a thirty-second ad that will cut right into the middle of the Champions League final on May 26. The tech giant asserts that the advertisement is ‘designed to trick viewers into thinking their devices have been turned off leaving nothing but a blank screen’.
Rebecca Hirst, Marketing Director, Samsung Electronics UK & Ireland commented, “This unique and disruptive marketing campaign has been designed to underscore our messaging in the most dramatic way possible, switching sets off to remind the public that their TV is simply a boring black screen for 90% of the time.”